


Controlled Burn

by Neurocrat



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Healing Sex, Prison, Pyromania, Sad Goodbye, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:18:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8659543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurocrat/pseuds/Neurocrat
Summary: Elliot and Hot Carla get to know each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for mrrbot_kinkmeme request like so:
> 
> Elliot/Hot Carla--anything  
> I just think there should be any kind of fic about them hooking up in some way. She's his personal totem, after all!

I am fascinated by her and a little scared of her. I sort of want to get to know her, but I don't know how. Besides - I never was good at making friends.

I watch her from a safe distance. She watches me, too, looking up from her fires with a mild gaze. I don't know what she thinks of me. Does she think I'm just another lech trying to get in her pants? Or does she feel some kinship with me, too?

One day I'm behind her in line in the cafeteria and these two white guys in front of her are giving her shit. “Hey baby,” one of them says, “How bout I trade you some extra tater tots for a hummer?” She doesn't even look at him. The other one chuckles, not talking directly to her, “I wonder what she’s got downstairs.” They're muttering awful things and grinning and being really gross about it. She looks off into the distance and just crinkles her nose in disgust a little bit, subtle enough so they don't get all up in her face. I want to do something, but they're so much bigger than me and there are two of them, and I've been trying so hard to just not stand out here. Leon’s not around to back me up right now.

What I can do is just make conversation about something else. I clear my throat awkwardly. “Hey. Um.”

She doesn't know I'm talking to her; I bite my lip and steel myself and touch her on the arm. She turns and looks at me with a wary sigh.

“Hey. ...I was just wondering if you ever burn things for other people?” 

Her face relaxes a little bit. “Sure, hon, anytime you want,” she says. Her voice is deep and rich and beguiling. She sounds both like me and not like me. “I'm always looking for new material.” She gives me a hint of a smile. 

“I'm Elliot,” I say, and don't offer a hand (used up all my will to touch strangers) and she doesn't look weirded out or put her hand out. It's like she gets it. 

(She doesn't introduce herself back, because everybody here knows her name.)

“Yeah, I know,” she says. “The computer guy. Your reputation precedes you.”

I look down. “Yeah, well, I don't do that stuff anymore.” 

She looks at me sideways. “Mm-hmm, sure. They all say that. You'll go back. Me, I don't pretend anymore to be something I'm not.” I think I know what she means, but she continues with something else: “I set fires. Everyone knows I set fires. I always will.”

I've been curious about this. “Why do the guards let you? I mean, they don't do anything to stop you.”

She kind of looks at me like I'm stupid. “They let me set little fires in the yard where they can monitor it, so I don't set bigger fires they can't monitor.”

Oh.

\-----

I stand by her in the yard and we stare at a book going up in the flame pit.

“Seems like a shame to burn a book,” I remark, and then regret it. I hope I didn't offend her. I don't mean to judge other people's habits.

She shrugs. “There's another copy in the library.”

I push aside the ash with a stick. The Catcher in the Rye. I remember it. Holden Caulfield. I could kind of relate to him when I read that in high school; he was on the edge of figuring something out, all that stuff about people being phonies- but he didn't quite get there. And he went so mental, after his privileged life in prep schools, what the fuck. The worst thing his parents did to him was sort of ignore him. Most of us should be so lucky.

“Did you read it?” I ask her.

“Of course I read it.”

“Didn't like it?”

She looks up at me. “No, I did like it. Very much, actually.”

We both look back at the fire. I don't have to ask the next question, it's obvious to her. She sighs. “Sometimes you need to clear a thing out of your system, you know?”

I nod. Boy do I know. 

“Like, I read this, and it affected me. I cried at the end. But even though I sympathized with him, I kinda hated him at the same time. What a selfish little prick, am I right?”

I laugh. “Yeah.” We catch eyes and we're both smiling a little. I quickly look back at the fire, shy.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I had all these emotions over this book, and now… I've got to wrap them up, clear them out.” She shakes her head. “Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it really does,” I say. More than she can imagine. I think of my book of CDs. I want to tell her, but how would I even start.

I don't expect it when she takes my hand. It's so warm and her skin is soft. We're both still just looking at the fire like nothing happened.

\-----

We talk by her fires pretty often now. We both know we're becoming kind of more than friends, but we have to be furtive about it. Like many people in here, Carla trades certain favors to certain guys for things she needs, like cigarettes and matches and books from outside. Some of those guys think she is theirs; they would not be so happy about her making her own decisions about who she spends time with. I'm small, I'm nobody, I don't want to make waves.

And I can't get another innocent person hurt.

Only Leon knows, because he seems to know everything I do. He doesn't say anything about it. But he keeps an eye out for us. Sometimes, he gets me away from the fire and over to watch the game with him when one of Carla’s guys starts looking our way. Leon's always there for me. Why that is, is a mystery to me, but I don't ask questions. I need him.

Carla and I have a moment one day when a fight breaks out in the yard and everyone is watching it, including the guards, all eyes off us. We glance at each other but I'm frozen. Carla clucks her tongue, shaking her head. “Life is short, sweetie,” she whispers, as in admonition, putting her arms around my shoulders and kissing me. 

I close my eyes and let the heat spread from my mouth across my face, down my neck to my chest. I put my hands around her waist (thin, fragile, like me, different than me) but after a second she pulls away. Not because she wants to, but because we have to keep our secret. 

We stand side by side looking at the fire again, trying to act casual. It's a funny feeling for me to try not to smile. I hope the heat in my face isn't visible.

\----

I'm MIA for a few days thanks to Ray and come back looking like shit. She makes a noise in her throat when she sees me. I want so bad for her to take me in her arms right now but I know she can't do that. We stand there and watch together as she stirs the coals. She's burning The Remains of the Day. 

“I haven't read that one,” I croak. My larynx is still bruised.

“It's about this English butler in the 1930s that tries so hard to make everything perfect that he ends up making really nice dinner parties for Nazis,” says Carla. “And then he really regrets it when he looks back on his life. Plus, he and the head housekeeper are in love with each other but they can't admit it, and later he regrets that, too.”

“Sounds sad,” I say.

“It is sad. But beautiful.”

She looks up to see if anyone is nearby enough to hear, then, and lowers her voice. “Elliot. If I could, I would clean all your wounds right now. I would smooth your hair. I would hold you and tell you it's going to be okay. I would wipe away your tears.”

What tears, I think, but then I start to feel them on my face. Shit.

“I just want you to know. I can't do any of these things, but that's what I would do if I could. I hope at least words help.”

I just nod. I suck in my snot loudly and clear my throat.

We stand closer together. After a while, I calm down a little. I don't feel safe, or whole (I never do) but maybe a little closer to that.

She speaks up again after a bit, even quieter than before. “Also, when I'd cleaned you up, and made you feel better, then I'd kiss your face, I'd take off your shirt and lay down with you…” I was not expecting this; it's too much right now. “I'd caress you, I'd kiss down your chest, down your stomach… reach into your fly and get out your hard-on, put my mouth--”

“Stop- stop!” I hiss at her, desperately. I look around. Still nobody's really noticing us, thank Christ. “Carla- you can't do that to me!” She's laughing. I'm throbbing hard. Goddamnit. 

\-----

I march up to her and her fire with my journal. She's surprised. 

“I thought you said you needed that to help you keep control.”

“Yeah, well, it didn't actually work as well as I thought,” I say to her. “You know how you said those things about how you set fires, no matter what?”

She smiles at me. “Ah. So the journal was just a ruse you were tricking yourself with.”

“Pretty much,” I say, “although I will say I got some good out of it. Just not the same good I was trying to get.”

“Go ahead,” she nods toward the fire. “Chuck it in. Purge all that shit out of you.”

I do. I watch my words and Mr. Robot’s words curl and char. My fruitless struggles with him. The crazy visions, the bullet wounds, the sleepless nights on Adderall. The real-world nightmares of Ray’s business, of what they did to me. All of it burns.

My weeks of trying to shut down in me what can't be shut down. They go up in smoke.

I feel lightheaded and raw. When it's done, I look up at Carla and take a deep breath. Her eyes are shining. She takes my hand, she doesn't seem to care who sees us. We get permission to go to the library. She gives the guy on duty a handful of cigs to keep away from us for a while and keep quiet. We retreat to the most protected corner. I back up against the wall and draw her close to me.

Finally we can make out for real, not just these furtive short kisses that have become such a taunt to both of us. Our arms are wrapped tight around each other, one of my hands holding the back of her head so I can push my mouth harder onto her mouth, feel her tongue deeper next to mine. I'm making little moans, I can't help it. She puts my hand on one of her breasts, I rub and squeeze it through her jumpsuit and she sucks in air and says “mmm.” She unbuttons and pulls down the top of my jumpsuit, then her hands go up my t-shirt, all over my ribs and chest, and I can hardly take it but I still want her to touch me everywhere. 

We kiss and kiss, I am so starved for her lips and tongue. I can feel her own hardness pressing against mine. I wish we had time to do everything. I’ve never been fucked in that way, but with Carla I'd try anything, I want to see what it's like to have her inside me. I trust her completely.

Carla gets down on her knees in front of me, and, just like she promised, after I was beat up so brutally and her words were balm to me, she kisses down my stomach, one wet, luxurious kiss at a time (looking up at me with one eyebrow arched meaningfully; I bite down on a giggle at her knowing dramatics). She reaches in the waistband of my underwear, takes my dick out, stroking it just enough to tease me. 

“Oh god, please, Carla, please,” I breathe. She smiles up at me, all innocent. “Please what, Elliot?” She whispers, her mouth so near the head of my dick I can feel her breath. 

I don't even know how to beg for what I'm begging for. “Please… please do it…” She licks the head once and I jump and gasp. “Do that?” She asks. God, the way she is fucking with me - so unfair, so hot.

“Please take me in--Ahh!” Suddenly her mouth is engulfing my cock. I am surrounded by heat. When she moves, the wet friction of her tongue sends an electric spasm through me. I tilt my head back and thump it hard into the wall. The pain keeps me from coming right away. She sucks me hard, moving so good on me, though, I couldn't possibly hold on. I stifle my moans the best I can as she speeds up a little and the pleasure climbs three steps at a time. I'm helpless to control it. White hot orgasm pulses outwards from the depths. I am blinded by it, consumed. 

I twitch my hips and shudder as Carla swallows each spasm and gently lets me go. I slide down the wall to sit, my legs won't hold me up anymore, and she sits back on her heels so we're eye to eye. She's smiling at me, and she's beautiful. For a second I see flames burning around her head, but I blink and the vision passes.

I feel cleansed. Maybe I can emerge from this burnt skin as something a little different, a little more new.

\----

I'm getting out and I don't really know why. But I know better than to question it.

Ray's men finally tried to kill me, and Leon, Jesus, what did he do. Did any of them survive? I can barely call up flashes of memory; Mr. Robot is trying to keep it from me. And next thing I know, I'm being released. It makes no sense. I have no idea what's going to happen to Leon. But I do know he is stronger than anyone I know. 

I have to find Carla before they process me out. They haven't given me much time.

I find her in the TV room, they aren't letting us out in the yard today for one of their meaningless reasons. She’s staring at the screen but not really watching, surreptitiously flicking a lighter on and off that she's holding in her lap. 

“Carla,” I start, and she turns, smiling. Her smile fades when she sees my face, though.

I look at my shoes. “I'm. I'm getting out.”

“... Already? I thought you…”

“I know. I mean, it should have been a lot more time. But they're releasing me.”

“Today?” I nod. I can't even look at her.

She gets up from her chair and comes up to me, wraps her arms around me tight. I squeeze her back. There are a couple of wolf whistles from around the room, but we ignore them. Should I bother to try not to cry? There's no point.

She pulls back from me and holds my face in both her hands. “Elliot. Remember. Don't ever try to be something you're not. Trust me on that one.”

I nod, blinking tears away. “I trust you,” I say, and I mean more than just trusting her advice.

“And Elliot? Remember me.”

I nod again, and sob instead of speaking.

She kisses me and I close my eyes, trying to burn the feel of her lips on my memory. Her lips are by my ear then, and she whispers. What the butler couldn't say to the housekeeper in that book. All I can do is hold onto her so tight. Until she gently lets me go and takes my arms off her one by one. 

A guard has arrived to escort me out. “Cmon, let's move,” he says, bored. I break my eyes off of hers finally and follow him. When I look back over my shoulder, she's gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew once you start writing something like this, you're just going to be up all night. Please let me know what you think...
> 
> UPDATE: I wrote this before reading Red Wheelbarrow; now i *really* want to ship them. He's obsessed with her, writes her a love poem, drama, jealousy, the whole bit... People on Reddit seriously trying to say he didn't have a crush on her in this book. uh. Right.
> 
> Some other thoughts-
> 
> I think I made my Elliot a little too rational in curbing his impulses to play the knight in shining armor (and fuck everything up)...
> 
> My idea that Elliot thinks of himself and Carla as having a lot in common / being the "same" played out in canon - that is cool - I think there are some big hints in here that Elliot is kind of gender-nonconforming, is it just me? What do you all make of the dream where his male friends are in one room, female friends in another, and he is hovering between, not sure which room to be in, feeling "a little lost"?
> 
> Man I thought I was being so cheesy and obvious having Catcher in the Rye in my fic, but he gives it to Carla in Red Wheelbarrow. And loves it, and has clearly read it lots of times. I guess I made my Elliot even MOAR cynical than canon. Or put too much of me in there ;)


End file.
